From passion to compassion: understanding the foundations of empathetic practice

Many readers may recall not only one of the UK's longest-running advertising slogans ‘Go to work on an egg’, but also the regular experience of being served this nutritionally versatile, oval-packaged protein by parents swayed by the campaign's promise of a solid start to a productive day.

First aired in 1965 on the UK terrestrial television (there was no other kind) and featuring the comedy icon Tony Hancock and character actress Patricia Hayes, the black and white commercial ran in several forms until finally taken off the airwaves, ironically for ‘failing to promote a balanced diet’.

For those who remember that catchphrase and period, eggs embodied health, heartiness and in its humorous approach, happiness. Similarly, the egg has long had numerous universal connotations and symbolic significance, variously representing creation, nascent life and rebirth. For ancient Egyptians, the cosmos originated from a primordial egg; according to the Hindu Upanishads, Brahmanda, or the cosmic egg, hatches the universe and thereafter the evolution of humanity; the Orphic tradition on the birth of the ancient Greek gods sees Dionysus represented holding an egg; the Romans left eggs as burial offerings; in pre-Incan mythology, the superlative divinity was represented by ovoid gold plates within the celestial cosmos.